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Re: [microsound] maths science and electronic music



Ah, thanks for the clarification David, I do have something to add about interfaces...

To what extent are individuals controlled by interfaces and norms embedded within technologies?

I'm afraid you're right about reverse control, and I see it in the community as well. Is it because:


- people are basically lazy and don't want to think hard about it?
- people just want to sound like other artists, and commandeer the tools?
- technology has become so pervasive that it's taken for granted?
- we don't want to work the way we want to because we're afraid to work outside the fitted UI, because there's a fear that we'll break the computer?


there are probably many more questions like these.

We are constantly affronted by GUIs and mechanisms which help us work, I am totally controlled by my interface at work (I am a unix sysadmin). But I customize my interface to a high degree, and use open source software which makes it easy to do that.

A lot of options don't allow for flexibility and adaptation, and push the user into one mode of working and one way of thinking about problems. Many musicians build their own sound sources, and computer musicians build their own interfaces for sound, but I don't think this is widespread. The comments about programs like Live and Reason can be pessimistically accurate considering that one reason people buy it is because they know so-and-so uses it, and they already want to be pigeonholed before they even start up the application.

Companies like Microsoft try and program their user base by first creating a paradigm that is easy to work in, and then locking them into that by not allowing compatibility or extendibility with other products or services. The inbred nature of how M$ products have evolved and stifled the way business works is a prime example of the interface taking over to become a social virus. Every software company, despite good intentions and programming practices, has to make concessions for Microsoft products, because the compatibility won't work the other way around, and are similarly bound.

matt

On Apr 13, 2005, at 8:13 AM, David Powers wrote:

Hi Matt,

Good answers, but I think you miss what I was getting at...  I meant to
pose these questions in collective/cultural terms, not individual ones.
For example, the Chernobyl accident is a little different than the
musical accident.  Furthermore, while you as an individual may not
experience it, I'm sure that computer interfaces do exert a control on
the general population - I see it at work in the university every day.
This is not just a mental or individual question, but really has
political and social implications.

~David


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